Bandeira

Bandeira, Portuguese slave-hunting expedition into the Brazilian interior in the 17th century. The bandeirantes (members of such expeditions) were usually mamelucos (of mixed Indian and Portuguese ancestry) from São Paulo who went in search of profit and adventure as they penetrated into unmapped regions. They thus helped establish Brazil’s claim to the South American interior, beyond the line between Portuguese and Spanish possessions in the Americas that had been laid down in the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494).

The bandeiras, numbering anywhere from about 50 to several thousand men, were organized and tightly controlled by wealthy entrepreneurs. The expeditions would usually found settlements en route, build roads, and lay the basis for agriculture and ranching in the interior. They would often ally themselves with one Indian tribe against another and end by enslaving both weakened belligerents. The mission villages established by the Jesuits for the Indians were prime targets for bandeira slave raids. The first bandeira, organized by Antonio Raposo Tavares in 1628, raided 21 such villages in the upper Paraná valley and captured about 2,500 Indians. The Jesuit missionaries were the chief opponents of the bandeirantes and tried to stave off their attacks by moving their villages farther south and west and by arming the mission Indians. Nevertheless, the bandeiras, the most famous of which was led by Fernão Dias Pais Leme, netted large profits in slaves and wreaked great injury on the Indians.